Sunday, February 04, 2007

Giant Corporation Rips Off Little Guy

So what else is new? you ask.

Ususally it's us blogger-types ripping off images from the internet and corporations for use on our blogs. We're private individuals with a somewhat working knowledge of copyright laws -- particularly the fair use, satire and parody exemptions -- and not one single copyright lawyer on retainer.

So I was shocked to learn that Coca-Cola had used the 7 Seconds of Love ninja kitten video for South American Coke ads without permission or compensation. (via Cap'n Dyke). Hell, even Sadly, No! had the professional courtesy to ask my permission to use a graphic last week. (BTW, anyone may use anything as long as there is attribution with a link and no attempt to sell the images or use them for marketing, which would probably violate whatever copyright law covered the images I used, anyway).

7 Seconds of Love is the band of Joel Veitch, the purveyor of rathergood.com, the site of internet-famous cut-out characters such as the Viking Kittens. And it's not like they were previously commercially unknown. Quiznos used the bizarre spongmonkeys a couple of years ago.

I don't understand why all the headlines on my search engine refer to a "copyright dispute" between the band and Coca-Cola Company. What's the dispute?

"They (Coke) have a policy of not litigating against bands and we came to a nice agreement," said lead singer Joel Veitch, animator of the video.

What does that mean that Coke doesn't litigate against bands? What would Coke litigate? They stole the video, they got caught.

Anyway, Veitch seems actually pleased that Coke stole from him, for good reason.

"It's really good for the band. You never know, maybe we could get into the charts," he said. "We've never had the money to do a very good job, but now we've got into a good studio and have got a fantastic management team behind us."

I'm not generally a big fan of the ska, but congrats anyway.

I am, however, a big fan of Coca-Cola. Mmmmm, buy an ice cold Coke today.*